Vitamin Y Vitamin Y The pudgy girl is ...

The pudgy girl is casually spreading her legs across the room of some bar on 4th St. She's working that big-tit sexpot thing, an esthetic validated most famously by R. Crumb, and I'm not convinced she's got something I'd ever want. I've declared in the past that I'll gladly peek up the chubby girl's skirt-Why not? What's to lose?-but up there? Do I really need to steal a glance at this Lisa Loeb lookalike (minus four inches and plus 30 pounds)? She's the type who confuses boisterous for assertive, slutty for spirited, whorish for hellfire.

Fortunately, I'm doing nothing more than looking. I'm out to drink and spend time with the girlfriend. We're doing just fine, though the room could be better: The Galaga machine is broken and the crowd is loud in a bad way. My new friend, Al, is a nice guy, but the rest of the crowd is exclusively chipster. The girls are aggressively unfashionable, and the boys are discussing points about speed metal so fine that they're even boring each other. Not to mention me.

But then again, I'm getting old. Friday night's Crooked Fingers show at Bowery Ballroom was characterized by my date as old people music. "Yeah," I replied, weakly, already shocked and embarrassed by what I was about to say, "but you shoulda heard Archers of Loaf back in the day."

Back in the day. Holy Christ. Back in the day-that day, back when AOL didn't yet suggest ISP-I was living in west Philadelphia, smashing my head into the drywall of a numbing day job and living on returnable pint bottles of Yuengling and take-out sandwiches from the nearby Wurst House.

Ten years later, I'm drinking Yuengling again. Vitamin Y, as they call it out in Pottsville, PA, where it's brewed, arrived while I was away, and now I can order a pint in just about every bar in town. In '95, though, it was a treat. Every time I rented a car for an out-of-state family visit or a midweek jaunt to Atlantic City, I'd stop into a south Jersey liquor store and fill up. The cases of the porter and lager would be stacked in the living room of my apartment in Little Italy, and I'd ration the bottles over the following weeks.

Funny thing about that "old people music" show: the crowd was young. Eric Bachmann may not be the lanky front man I saw at the old Knitting Factory space ten years ago, but that obviously hasn't prevented him from attracting new fans.

Maybe it's because he's not pretending to be anything but a mid-30s musician. A couple weeks back, I had the misfortune of seeing Ted Leo/Pharmacists at Village Underground. I don't care about Chisel and Animal Crackers or any of the other entries on Leo's punk-rock resume. His solo act blows. My friend Tony convinced me to go by describing the music as emo-as if that was enticement enough-but when I saw a crowd of khakis, button-downs and woven leather belts, I knew something was wrong.

Ted Leo is Hootie for a recently graduated crowd that wants its punk rock to be easily digested; the music is soft and harmless and altogether godawful. Which is fine-for a 22-year-old dude who just spent the last four years memorizing the Fugazi canon after throwing out his worn copy of Legends. No grown man-and especially not a supposed punk rock old-timer-should be crooning to a crowd of sweater-clad girls sipping Coors Light.

I've got absolutely nothing against artists who don't disappear after peaking in their 20s. Quite the contrary. I've always admired the work of those in their 30s, and I would never wish young genius accolades upon anyone I know. But I'm torn these days. I'm once again drinking Yuengling and once again living mostly on take-out sandwiches. Am I guilty of revisiting and grasping? Or have I simply found a lifestyle that I'm comfortable with?

Maybe I'll make some progress in two weeks when I move into my apartment, where I'll be able to cook a good meal. Or, maybe nothing will change.

Can anyone recommend a bar that serves the porter?